House GOP unveils energy spending bill

House Republicans proposed a $34 billion energy and water budget Monday that restores almost $1 billion in White House cuts from the Army Corps of Engineers and instead takes money from renewable energy programs prized by President Barack Obama.

While many Democrats would agree that Obama went too far in in his cuts from the Corps, the tradeoff is a graphic illustration of the choices forced this summer by the strict spending caps agreed to last December.

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The $5.5 billion provided in the draft 62-page bill essentially freezes the Corps at its current 2014 funding levels. But the House GOP’s plan is still almost $960 million more than the president’s request, creating a hole that must be filled elsewhere.

For the larger science budget in the Energy Department, $5.07 billion is provided — a freeze at 2014 levels.

Senate Democrats are tentatively expected to roll out their own energy and water budget next week. They too, like the House GOP, are under pressure to restore some of the president’s cuts from the Corps.

In anticipation of this, the Senate Appropriations Committee has allocated about $34.2 billion for the same bill, which compares to the president’s request of $33.68 billion. But cutting so much from renewable energy programs will be harder for Democrats at a time when the administration is trying to focus the nation more on the threats of climate change and carbon-buildup in the atmosphere.

In the context of this climate change debate, one interesting footnote here—important to Western states—is the budget for water and related resources in the Bureau of Reclamation, which also receives funding in the same energy and water bill.

The dollars are a fifth of what’s in the Corps budget but have added import this summer given the drought facing farmers and ranchers.

The House bill provides $856 million or $95.6 million more than Obama requested, but the administration would argue that these choices do more to address the results of climate change—not the cause of the problem.

As if anticipating this fight, both House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) and the bill’s manager, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) Monday emphasized the importance of infrastructure investments in their proposal.

The same infrastructure theme has also been a favorite of Obama’s this year, and Republicans seemed intent on reminding him of that fact.

Nonetheless, given the spending caps, the administration felt it still had to go after the Corps—as one pot of money to fund other priorities.

Indeed the tradeoffs are really two-part.

Inside the bill itself, the obvious one is between the Corp and renewable energy investments.

But a second—on the broader budget stage—is between the Corps and pre-school initiatives Obama wants funded in an entirely different bill covering the departments of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. Here the president is asking for $158 billion in 2015. That’s $2.3 billion more than the House GOP is promising thus far and a target harder to meet without any cuts from the Corps.